Eleven

There were large trucks parked around, and, as she stepped into the gloom, saw thick cables snaking across the floor. She followed them past a double row of huge wooden crates, until the resulting corridor opened into a cavernous open space with thirty foot ceilings, supported at regular intervals by posts. The outside walls were lined with more large crates, but there was a space easily 5000 feet square which was open. At the far end of the open area, the cables lead to an elaborate set of stage lights, which were throwing a small section of the warehouse into sharp relief. There were a lot of people milling around, and Emily spotted Trent among them, holding a guitar. She moved toward the group, but stayed in the shadows for the moment, not wanting to interrupt. Everyone in the room seemed to be part of the project. There were no fans, no extras hanging around, and self-doubt hit her hard.

What am I doing here? she thought. I don’t even know this man. I’ve spoken to him twice in my life. Her gut clenched, as though with nerves and she berated herself silently for even coming. She was turning to go when someone shouted her name. She stopped in mid-spin, her face flaming red. Trent was coming toward her. No escape now, although her mind processed a dozen excuses for taking off in the second-and-a-half that it took him to cross the room to her side. She wished she had brought her pager. It tended to provide built-in excuses.

“Hey!” he said, seeming genuinely glad to see her.

“Hey yourself,” she replied, smiling in spite of herself. “I was just thinking I’d wait outside… I didn’t want to interrupt.” She finished lamely.

“Forget it,” he said. “We're done for the day. I want you to come and meet the guys.” He reached for her arm and guided her toward the lights and people.

He was obviously more comfortable in this group, she realized instantly, than he was one-on-one. Gone was the shyness, the almost self-effacing way he had barely met her eyes in the coffee shop. Today, Trent had more of the confidence that she’d seen the first night when he’d burst into the ER. The confidence, bordering on arrogance, that had so turned her off that first night.

Her mind was so busy processing his apparent double personality, that it took her a second to register that “the guys” she was on her way to meeting were the rest of Uptown. Her stomach flipped again, and she felt like a teenager. The power of fame, she thought. Every insecurity she’d ever experienced surfaced at that moment, and she had to fold her arms across her chest to physically restrain herself from self-consciously smoothing her hair. It occurred to Emily that it had been a very long time since she’d felt quite so self-conscious; eight years of marriage and three years of widowhood meant over a decade since she’d worried about whether anyone else would think her jeans made her look fat. Simultaneously, she was kicking herself for not choosing the other pants.

Unable to politely extricate herself from the situation, Emily squared her shoulders and subtly shrugged Trent’s hand from her arm, not unpleasantly flustered by his proximity and its relationship to the butterflies in her stomach. She smiled in what she hoped was a confident way, and walked with Trent to meet the band.

“Guys, this is Emily, the doctor who looked after that girl,” he said, placing a hand on her lower back. She barely heard their names, as he introduced her around the circle, aware almost exclusively of his touch on her back. A little shiver ran up her spine and made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She wasn’t sure if it was irritation or arousal at the root of the tingle; she knew only that it was his hand that was causing it.

Introductions ensued. The band consisted of Blake, the drummer, Peter, the bass player, and Trent, who played guitar and sang.

The four chatted for a while, leaning on crates that were part of the set. Someone asked about the girl, and Emily carefully deflected their questions with minimal, public access information, and no one seemed to notice the purposeful vagueness of her response. Crew members rolled up cables and unplugged electronic equipment. Trent was gregarious, horsing around with the guys, speaking in a loud voice. He seemed so different from the man she had spent hours chatting comfortably with in the café, that she almost wondered if he had been drinking. This, she thought with mild distaste, is what rock stars are like. Who the hell was I with in that café then? Who have I been obsessing over for the last two weeks?

Soon, the crew pulled the plug on the stage lights, and the room was plunged into the relative gloom of the sparsely placed sodium lights suspended from the ceiling. One of the men, Blake, she thought, pulled out a joint. “Anyone want?” he asked.

Emily stood up. This was definitely way too high school for her. How old were these men, anyway? “Not for me, thanks,” she said, shoving her hands in her pockets and feigning politeness. “I need to get going.” She stood and eased in the direction of the door.

“It was good to meet you all,” she said. “I look forward to seeing the video.”

She headed at a brisk pace for the exit, not waiting for their responses. She was almost at the door when she heard Trent say, “No thanks, guys. I’ll catch ya later.”

Derisive comments and catcalls ensued. As she opened the door to let herself out into the sunshine, Trent caught up to her and touched her arm. She stopped and tuned to look at him, squinting in the glare.

“Hey, don’t mind them,” he said.

She debated saying not anything at all, let alone what she was thinking, and bit her tongue. She looked up at Trent. “I need to go,” she finally said, firmly.

“Aren’t you going to let me buy you coffee?” He looked confused and genuinely disappointed. A little more like the coffee-shop Trent.

“Look,” she said, and she could hear the it’s-just-not-working tone creeping into her voice. “I…” She stopped.

“I’m sorry about them,” he said, looking quite contrite. “We get kind of… I don’t know… carried away sometimes.” He held out a hand, and Emily took an involuntary step back.

“It’s not just them, Trent,” she said. “I’m a little long in the tooth to be a groupie, smoking up with the band.” Not to mention, I’m a doctor, you idiot, she thought. Nice for an ER doc to drive off a bridge or something while under the influence. Not to mention, what would become of my kids if I ended up busted for drugs? But knowing she would sound like a stuffed shirt, and still, for some reason, caring about how she sounded, she remained silent.

“That’s Blake,” Trent said. “Not me. I’m past that stuff. Ten years ago maybe, but it gets old pretty quick. Blake’s the youngest of us, he joined the band a couple of years ago. He’s still thrilled by the whole rock star lifestyle.”

“And you’re not?” Emily asked, her mood bordering on anger, but inexplicably inclined to believe him.

“Not really,” Trent shrugged, not rising to her bait. “I’d actually prefer a nice cabernet to a joint.” He grinned at her, somehow not sounding like a pompous ass, and she felt her anger melt. What the hell was happening to her? How could this man piss her off so royally one second and actually garner her sympathy the next?

She watched him sense the shift in her mood and he said, “Come on. I’ll make it up to you. How about something a little more refined than coffee?”

She looked at him then, really looked at him, and although she did not want to be swayed by what she had to admit was a very pretty face, his disarmingly boyish grin caught her off guard and she heard herself answering, reluctantly, “Sure, fine. Let’s go.” One more chance, and I’m walking, she thought. “I’ll drive.”